Cornwall trials new bring banks for food and drink cartons

A new partnership between ACE UK and Cornwall Council will allow residents to take food and drink cartons and paper cups for recycling at seven Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC).

According to ACE UK, Cornwall is estimated to put 450 tonnes of drink cartons out for waste collection annually.

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From this, the partnership is urging people to go to the HWRC’s with their empty cartons, paper cups and any other waste or recycling that can’t be collected by the Council’s kerbside collection service.

This year’s REB Market Intelligence Summit is taking place on 2 October and will look at end destinations for materials. Find out more here

The new bring banks at the HWRC’s are being supplied by ACE UK whose members include Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc.

This service is a two-year pilot being funded by ACE UK, with all cartons and paper cups collected at the banks to be taken to ACE UK’s specialist facility near Halifax.

Cornwall’s HWRC’s handle more than 80,000 tonnes of waste each year, of which more than half is set for recycling said Cornwall Council portfolio holder for environment and public protection Sue James.

She added: “People have been asking about recycling food and beverage cartons for some time, so I’m pleased ACE UK are working with us to provide this service at seven of our HWRCs. Having bring banks based at our HWRCs will allow people to bring their cartons with them when making a trip to their local centre.

“We know from surveys that residents want to be able to recycle more. While we can’t include this as part of our current kerbside collections we are asking the bidders for the 2020 kerbside collection contract to consider collecting additional materials, such as these cartons.”

ACE UK senior recycling manager Mandy Kelly said: “It’s great news that food and drink cartons and paper cup recycling has now come to Cornwall. From our conversations with the Council we know residents are keen to recycle cartons, so we are extremely pleased to install bring banks at these seven sites – and of course all cartons and cups collected will be recycled here in the UK.”

People in Cornwall are being advised to wash and squash cartons and replace the caps before placing it in the bring banks, with only paper coffee-type cups being accepted.